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hide + seek

Don’t stay together for the kids. Just don’t, okay? I know you mean well, but it’s so much harder living through this when you sort of kind of understand what’s going on. Worse: when you’ve been counting down the years by cheating. Or you get caught by your kids.

I can’t shift the notion that this knife in my mother’s back was IT, that it broke me and not the stupid cold I had over the holidays. There is a definite Before and After, and I’m not the same After, I know it. I’ve had more panic attacks. I’ve been crankier. I’ve been sadder. Cried more, for sure.

the takeover, the sweeping insensitivity of this still life.

And all for what? Now he’s got as high an opinion of his girlfriend as I ever had, which is to say he’ll probably move back in. That’s just wonderful. Thinks he can come and go whenever he pleases, no matter what he’s done. Stinking arse. I mean that literally. He has, shall we say, endocrine issues that leave our sofas smelling terrible. The reek was just fading.

He doesn’t get to pick up where he left off. We made new lives here that didn’t include him. He has to fit into them or learn to exist around them. Poor Darling didn’t feel comfortable downstairs last night at all. This is my house. Darling is my man (for given values of “my”). Why should he be displaced by someone who gives no shits about this family except when it suits him?

mmm, what you say? mm, that you only meant well? well, of course you did.
mmm, what you say? mm, that it’s all for the best? because it is.
mmm, what you say? mm, that it’s just what we need? and you decided this.

And there will be no more unilateral decisions by any men who think they own not only this house but the women in it. This is now an outpost of a Guild, a Guild that only exists where there is earthquake weather, true, but I hold fast to my oath. Every Renunciate has a story; every story is a tragedy.

He meant well for himself. He didn’t actually think about what he was doing to us. He made all of his decisions based on what would save himself and to hell with us. No matter how often he apologizes, I cannot get past that. Because his apologies have meant nothing in the past. Because you don’t apologize for this kind of thing and expect forgiveness.

The number of times I’ve asked “Who does that?” over the last four months . . . you had to be there.

It is not all for the best. None of this is for the best. All of this is survival. In a way, coming back is like twisting the knife. Fine, he was gone. We were healing. I don’t think it became too much to bear until he decided he wanted to live here again. I was broken in ways that could mend with a little help. One last choice on one last whim (you decided this) was just too much. His survival is going to put mine in jeopardy. Again. Does that make him a parasite?

speak no feeling, no I don’t believe you. you don’t care a bit. you don’t care a bit.

Only come running when I’m dying, that’s the way. Only come and help me when I am screaming for mercy, wishing I’d killed myself because I can’t bear it any longer, tell me I have to hang on and then twist the goddamn knife, and what do you think I’ll do when you decide to come home? It’s not your home anymore. I don’t care if you do contribute to the mortgage. You rent half my mother’s bed and pay for your consumption; you are not part of this family in any other meaningful way.

you don’t care a bit.
you don’t care a bit.
you don’t care a bit.
you don’t care a bit.
you don’t care a bit.